


Maybe I Don't Act the Way I Used to

by screaminghere



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 22:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screaminghere/pseuds/screaminghere
Summary: Jimmy really can’t deal with Petey’s whole ‘you’re a good guy’ speech right now.





	Maybe I Don't Act the Way I Used to

**Author's Note:**

> song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mLD8FL28Nk

“What, is he your boyfriend or something?”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna fuck you next, cunt.” Jimmy gives the fucker a shove that sends him reeling into his buddy and almost knocks both of them over. “He’s with me. Touch him again and I’ll make sure you fucking understand that.”

The guy dusts himself off and rolls his eyes. “Whatever faggot, we’ll be back.” His friend sneers at Jimmy, then they stalk off to find something easier to beat up so they can boost their fragile egos.

“Thanks, Jimmy.”

Jimmy really can’t deal with Petey’s whole ‘you’re a good guy’ speech right now. “Yeah.”

Jimmy starts to walk and Petey grabs his wrist, which is his first mistake, because Jimmy is much stronger than Petey and his toothpick arms. Jimmy rips his arm away, but stops, turns to face him, looks at his scared face with a dark bruise just now flaring to life under his left eye; he’s sure there are more injuries he can’t see and the worry that crowds his lungs and makes it harder to breathe is hard to ignore, but he does anyway.

“I…” Petey steels himself; takes a deep breath and steadies his arms at his sides, fixes his face with a determined look. “Don’t just say ‘yeah’ and walk away, I might’ve died right there because I decided to fuck with the football team and you stepped in, let me do something in return.”

Jimmy knows full well that it’s not an insinuation, knows that’s not who Petey is, but just to be a bitch he raises his eyebrows and Petey flushes.

“Don’t be a fucking jerk, I mean I could help you study, or help you with your homework.”

Maybe Jimmy didn’t get enough sleep last night, maybe Jimmy didn’t eat a good breakfast, maybe Jimmy’s just a little pissed off right now and didn’t want to deal with this entire situation. Whatever the reason, Jimmy decides to be a little cruel. “Because I’m dumb?”

Perry’s face pales, somehow looks even more tired than before. “No! No, because… you have a lot of other stuff going on and I know you don’t like your classes…” 

Jimmy waits. Petey scowls.

Petey throws his hands up. “Ugh, you know what? Fuck it. If you don’t want my help then that’s fine. God, you can be so pissy sometimes.”

Something in his voice makes Jimmy feel bad, guilty. Through it all, through every small significant and largely insignificant thing that’s happened to them, through all of Gary, that asshole of a psychopath, Petey’s always been his friend, always tried to be his friend. Petey should know better, really; Jimmy doesn’t keep friends, isn’t good at keeping friends. The guilt grows a little more.

Hands in the pockets of his old school uniform that’s a bit big on him and probably a hand-me-down, Petey slinks away. Jimmy almost calls him back over, almost apologizes for being thick-skulled and closed-off and so frustratingly emotionally stunted, instead he heads to the afternoon class that he’s been dreading.

Zoe smiles at him in the hallway, a flash of long hair and gentle hands, pulls him aside for a quick kiss on the cheek, a peck on the lips, then she’s gone. She’s still there in his life, ever present, but she’s doing her own thing, living her own life, never wanting to commit to something for too long, never wanting to be tied down or trapped, but Jimmy knew that when he first met her. She’s down to make out or maybe even get frisky if the mood is right but when everything’s said and done, she relies on herself and only herself. Jimmy knows that but- maybe he wants to commit to something for a while, maybe he wants to be tied down, trapped (grounded, held in place). The bell rings, he keeps waking.

Chemistry is shit and the only thing that happens in class is a quiz, which Jimmy fails. (What the fuck is a half-life?)

Some loud, smelly kid in the back who needs to learn about deodorant and thinks that he’s Jimmy’s friend keeps wadding up pieces of paper and throwing them at the back of Jimmy’s head. Jimmy isn’t one for disturbing the peace without probable cause, but this guy is just asking for a beat down. Jimmy unravels one of the paper balls and reads “ur gay”. The kid’s smiling wide at him, thinking that he’s made the funniest joke in the world. It’s not something that would normally rile up Jimmy but right now he’s a bit touchy and it makes his barely controlled temper boil over.

The teacher’s high on something so he doesn’t notice when Jimmy shoots a pencil at the kid as hard as he can, freshly sharpened, hoping a little that it takes out an eye, but left disappointed as it smacks harmlessly against his face. The kid frowns at Jimmy and rubs his face, but leaves him alone for the rest of class.

The bell rings and Jimmy hops up, ready to get the fuck out of there and go do something that gets his blood pumping, his heart racing, but the teacher calls him over, sounding a bit too blissed out for what’s considered appropriate for the workplace.

“James.” 

Jimmy fucking hates when people use that name, the name his good-for-nothing mother gave him; it’s not his. He should probably just be thankful that his mom didn’t take a page from her Sunday classical-music radio and name him Wolfgang.

“Yes?” Teens swarm around him, crowding to get out of the doorway.

“Come here, please.”

Jimmy groans and rolls his eyes, but he obliges. “What?”

“You’re failing.” Not a surprise.

“I’ll try harder.”

“If you fail my class, you’ll have to take it over the summer to graduate.”

Jimmy’s mom isn’t spending a cent on him once he turns eighteen, so that leaves him without the money, transportation, or living space to take a summer class. There’s a part of him that doesn’t care about graduating, that encourages him to just drop out and take his chances, but he so desperately needs to get away from his mother and her expanding gallery of rich ex-husbands that each have only about five years left on their life spans and smell like piss and death no matter how many baths they take in their expensive tubs with jets and he’s sure that graduating would help him in getting a job, help him in getting him some money to finally move out, leaving everything behind, leaving this behind. What’s Petey going to do when he graduates? (Jimmy isn’t sure that he wants to leave everything behind, leave Petey behind.) Scratch that; why does Jimmy care what Petey’s going to do when he graduates?

“I hear you. I’ll try harder.”

“Good luck.” The teacher sighs. “Pass me that lighter, will you?”

Jimmy passes him the lighter, then leaves to find Petey and force himself to apologize. 

Jimmy searches the gym, because that was supposed to be Petey’s next class. He stops to wonder just when he memorized that part of Petey’s schedule, but he can’t recall. Petey’s always been a part of his life, at least ever since he came to this shitty school and because of that maybe Jimmy happened to pick up on a few things (on a lot of things). He certainly picked up on how Gary abused Petey daily; he also picked up on Petey’s reciprocal disdain for Gary. When Jimmy first came to this awful school, Petey was excited to meet him, to meet the new kid, excited to meet someone that hadn’t been corrupted yet, to meet someone that could possibly be kind. Jimmy hasn’t forgotten it (can’t forget it). Petey’s not in the gym.

There’s a person walking on Jimmy’s right, which is a perfectly normal thing for a schoolyard and it wouldn’t be strange if it wasn’t for the second person trailing Jimmy, and the person standing a bit ahead to Jimmy’s left, all grinning like hyenas. Jimmy readies himself for a fight as another guy that he hadn’t noticed sticks out his foot to trip him. Jimmy catches himself before he goes down.

“Told you we’d be back, Hopkins.”

“Four against one, you’re real cowards, huh?”

One of the boys closing in on Jimmy chuckles in a way that makes him sound dull and spits something that’s either tobacco or a sunflower seed or maybe just a really good loogie out to the side. When he grins his teeth are yellow, like he never learned how to brush them correctly.

They heckle at Jimmy, all four of them, taunting him every way he turns, eventually they start shoving, probably expecting him to helplessly get caught inside their little ring, but Jimmy isn’t some deer caught in headlights, this is where he thrives, in the middle of a fight, in the middle of danger, he shoves back. One of them falls to the ground, and like wild dogs, or maybe sharks that caught a whiff of blood, the rest of them jump Jimmy.

A punch lands on Jimmy’s jaw, causing a ringing in his ears and black spots in his vision. Someone shoves their foot against the back of his legs, knocking out his knees, and another person pushes him, finally getting him to fall to the pavement, his head hitting the ground hard. A well aimed kick to Jimmy’s side has him hoping that his ribs didn’t break. Jimmy’s a good fighter, but maybe not when he’s vastly outnumbered.

Jimmy tries to get up on his hands but a boot hits the side of his neck and sends him rolling onto his side. A foot crushes the oxygen (aha, he remembers that from Chemistry) from his chest and he hears laughter through the high pitched white noise in the back of his skull. He gasps for air and is acutely aware of how pathetic he looks. 

“Had enough, fag?”

Jimmy trains himself; he can get through this, he’s been through way worse. When the next kick comes, he grabs and pulls, which isn’t enough to get the guy to fall, but it’s enough to get him to stumble back. The heavy foot on his chest moves. Jimmy spits out blood and smiles, showing off his red teeth. 

Another kick comes soaring at his head and Jimmy just barely moves out of the way, shaking himself off and scrambling to his feet. He blinks his eyes, wishing that the world around him would stop swaying so violently.

The guys around him aren’t shaken at all, they’re hyped and jeering and ready to throw down all over again, jumping around like a cat playing with a mouse it caught. Jimmy doesn’t like to run away, he’s done enough of that in his lifetime to where he’s started to despise it, but right now, he’s not sure he has another choice. Jimmy turns and sprints in the other direction.

They chase him around the gym, over a fence, through the tennis court, then past the school’s huge decorative fountain, (Jimmy knows how to run fast, he had to know how to run fast) right to the front of the school, where a few prefects notice the commotion and wrestle a couple of his pursuers to the ground, making the others stop to try and defend them. Jimmy keeps running, eventually taking a rusty worn-down bike probably left outside for months and tetanus-ridden that was resting against a pole and riding it into town until he’s absolutely sure that no one’s following him.

Jimmy’s watch reads 6:30, which isn’t a surprise, but it’s a sure reminder that Jimmy isn’t getting his regular free school-dinner tonight. Petey would normally save him something if Jimmy didn’t show up in the cafeteria and Jimmy would normally push him away, tell him not to worry so much. That extra food might’ve been nice later today, but after what happened earlier between them, Jimmy’s pretty sure that Petey isn’t saving anything for him. His head is still pounding and his jaw aches, his stomach is growling.

Jimmy limps into a chain restaurant and gets some fast food that his beaten body and very possible concussion causes him to throw up, ordering an extra thing of fries that he could use as a peace offering with Petey as an afterthought. He rides the stolen bike back to the boys’ dormitories, which he finds isn’t pleasant on his horribly upset and now empty stomach, and ditches it behind the building. Jimmy holds his side, where he thinks maybe his appendix is bruised, but then again he barely passed biology, and tries to look dignified as he hobbles to his room and shuts the door behind him.

Jimmy really just wants to curl up and sleep for a day, or two, or a week, but who would’ve guessed, sitting right there on Jimmy’s bed, playing with his hands and looking as worrisome and sweet and innocent as an angel, is the one and only Peter Kowalski. 

Jimmy trips over his own feet but catches himself on his bed frame, grimacing as pain shoots through his ribs. “Hey, I was looking for you, can you help me study for Chemistry? I brought you fries.” The fries have a little blood on them; which is probably from his bloody nose. “Whoops. I don’t have any STD’s, I swear.”

“Jimmy!” Christ, he sounds like an angel, too. Definitely a concussion. “Are you okay?” Petey grabs his arm and sits him down on the bed.

“Peachy, but really, I’m failing Chemistry.”

Petey ignores that and goes to gingerly hold Jimmy’s face in his hands. “What happened?” Petey grabs a tissue and dabs at Jimmy’s nose.

“Nothin’. Shoulda seen the other guy.”

“I was waiting for you so I could apologize for ever calling you dumb, but honestly, you’re so insanely dumb!” Jimmy’s not even mad, he wonders how he was ever capable of being mad at Petey. “Tell me what happened.” Jimmy sighs.

“Those guys that were picking on you came back, but there were more of them.” Jimmy shrugs and gives Petey a smile that he hopes is reassuring (and isn’t missing any teeth). “But I sure as hell got away.”

“God, you’re so, so dumb.” Jimmy expects to see that Petey’s mad, it would make sense. Jimmy was an asshole to him earlier and now he shows up asking for help, but when Jimmy looks up Petey’s crying, rather, trying very hard not to cry. “What if you didn’t get away? You could’ve been lying on the ground somewhere, beaten half to death, for, like, hours!” Petey hugs him, tight. “Fuck, you’re such an idiot.” The words muffle into Jimmy’s shirt. Petey takes a deep breath then pulls back and gets himself together. Jimmy gets a good long look at the now puckered bruise under Petey’s eye. “You shouldn’t have stepped in.”

“What?”

“You shouldn’t have saved me! Just look at yourself; you’re so beat up!”

“But if I hadn’t done anything, then you’d look even worse than I do right now.”

“So? I’d rather be beat up myself than see you like this.” Petey’s hand is back on Jimmy’s face, his thumb tracing a scratch on Jimmy’s cheek, and Jimmy can’t help but feel that this is too intimate. “You’re my friend, Jim.” Jimmy also can’t find it in himself to break away, Petey’s hand is warm on his wind-bitten face. 

“Maybe I’d rather be beat up than see you beat up, too.” They’ve said ‘beat up’ so many times that it’s not sounding like a real phrase anymore, or maybe that’s Jimmy’s ever-present concussion. 

Petey’s eyes widen, well, his right eye does, his left eye is a bit swollen. “You… would…?” Jimmy hates that this comes as a surprise to Petey, but he knows that he hasn’t given much reason for Petey to believe otherwise.

Jimmy tries to clear his head, to look Petey in the eye. “Of course. We’re friends, right?” Jimmy attempts to make it sound confident, as if he’s not just admitting that very thing to himself.

“I…” Petey smiles, and Jimmy thinks that it’s beautiful, and that makes him afraid again. “Yeah, we are.”

Jimmy takes what he wants, that’s what he’s known for, but he doesn’t want for much, so no one ever knows just how greedy he can get. Right now, Jimmy wants all of this, everything in front of him right now and forevermore and it makes him cringe at how selfish that is. 

“I’m sorry for being a jerk earlier.” Jimmy finally gets to apologize.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry for ever saying you were dumb behind your back.”

“You’re not sorry for saying it to my face?”

“No, you can handle it when I say it to your face.”

“And you’ll help me with my Chemistry?”

“Maybe if you say ‘please’ really nicely.”

Petey’s still smiling at him, and his thumb is doing this amazing caressing thing on the non-bruised side of his jaw, so Jimmy thinks that maybe he can settle for only right now instead of forevermore and kisses Petey, greedily takes what he wants. 

Petey immediately straightens, but he hasn’t removed his hand from Jimmy’s face, and he’s looking back with his mouth partially open, shocked. He isn’t saying anything, just staring, and Jimmy doesn’t normally crack under pressure, but this whole situation has him a little worried that he’s completely ruined his first actual connection with another person.

“Pete, I-“ Petey kisses him back, then kisses him again, and again. He scoots closer to Jimmy, bringing his other hand up to Jimmy’s face.

“That was one hell-of-a-way to say ‘please’.”

“Did it work?”

“I’m gonna help you with your Chemistry class so fucking good.”

Petey kisses him, gently, slowly, scared of worsening any injuries already present on the both of them.

Petey rests his forehead on Jimmy’s. “Please tell me that this isn’t just a joke or a mistake or a symptom of your obvious concussion.”

“None of the above, but it was a complete impulse.”

“Be impulsive more often.” Petey kisses him again. “You taste like shit.”

“Yeah, I barfed a little bit ago.”

“You barfed, and then you kissed me?”

Jimmy frowns. “I’m not thinking straight, I have a concussion.”

“I brought you some food.” Jimmy’s heart warms at that. “But that might not be a good idea. You need to get some sleep.”

“Stay?”

“Yeah.”


End file.
